Beyond the West: containing an account of two years' travel in the other half of our great continent far beyond the old West, on the plains, in the Rocky mountains, and picturesque parks of Colorado. Also, characteristic features of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho ... Oregon, Utah, Nevada, and ... California, the end of the West ... the great continental railroad, together with the ... most wonderful natural scenery in the world .../ by George W. Pine.

BEYOND THE WEST.
becomes less, and goes back into the foot hills and
moulltains, until the country opens out in large and
beautiful rolling prairies. Not like the immense flat
plains of Illinois, but more like the undulating "oak
openings" of Wisconsin. Low ranges of hills divide
it, covered thinly with oak, low and spreading like
those in Sacramento Valley and at Achapulco, trunks
glowed in orange and green limbs, having a long,
gray, hanging moss swinging in the summer wind,
as if celebrating the mildness and beauty of the country. The soil is of a dark gray color; calcarious,
sandy loam; is mellow, and ordinarily suffers but little from drouth; is especially adapted to cereals, and
grows vegetables and the hardy fruits, but not so
largely as the more alluvial soil formed along the
rivers and streams. These prairies furnish grass in
abundance for hay, but not in such quantity or quality as the lower lands of the rivers and streams. But
grass is everywhere to be found more or less away
fioom the heavy timber, and that when cleared makes
the very best grass land of the country.
The general formation of the country govern men
in their selection of agricultural pursuits. The grain
farmer will settle in the valleys, while the fruit-groxwer will go to the low foot-hills, and the sheep-raiser
will go higher up among the hills with his sheep t,
the mountains. The dairyman seeks those places
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